


meaning comes from what you care about(i guess its lost on me)

by n0luv (orphan_account)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Child Abuse, Cutting, Depression, Gen, Get it?, Grief, Grieving, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Past Child Abuse, Poetry, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Notes, Triggers, Unhappy Ending, haha - Freeform, hargrieves, he doesnt get one, no beta we die like ben, sad hargreeves, the hargreeves need hugs, too soon? yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26220007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/n0luv
Summary: Grief and guilt go hand in hand with their torment and constant battle against Luther.He fights and fights, before one day he stops.Not because he’s won, no, he’d never win again.
Relationships: Luther Hargreeves & The Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	meaning comes from what you care about(i guess its lost on me)

**Author's Note:**

> Please listen to tags!

**Meaning Comes From What You Care About(I Guess Its Lost On Me)**

* * *

Crystalline flakes come down from the sky on a grey March 14th, 2007. Luther files out of the house alongside his siblings, chanting a mantra of _Train harder, work faster_ in his mind and under his breath. He gently twirls the black umbrella that lay lightly against his palm. 

He doesn’t let go, because it would drop. Snow would uncovertly cover him, melting and wetting his clothes distastefully.

Luther wouldn’t mind; he liked the snow. Another thing in the sky. Luther grew up on stories about the moon, the stars. Snow, similar to rain, became his next favorite thing from space. The wet, cold air was calming and peaceful. 

Though rain was percepted as a gloomy weather and snow a nuisance, it was neutral for Luther. In more ways than one, Luther rathered neutral than good _or_ bad. More often than Luther wished, the lines between good and bad blurred, so he chose neutral.

He’s knocked out of his stupor by the void voice of his father. He speaks, in his offtone, one capable of praise, but now of distaste and disappointment. All parents, at some point, were disappointed of their children. For the Hargreeves, it is constant. 

Tuning out his speech, Luther gazes upon the black coffin that lay innocently on the grass in their yard. Maybe in this moment, you would think that Luther looked calm. He wasn’t.

Grief and guilt go hand in hand with their torment and constant battle against Luther. Luther fights as best as he can, but some nights he contemplates stopping.

He pushes the thoughts away, in a matte and in desperate need of shining metal box. He locks the keyhole and ties it up with heavy chains. He throws the key away.

Luther doesn’t want to remember. Never again. But he does, as the key he threw and wants to be rid of so badly, crawls shakily back and unlocks the many restrictions on the box. 

The box is matte, and dark red. Painted over in a thick coat of color. No varnish. The pretty caramel and oak is covered with the red. Red. It was all red.

Luther wasn’t close to Ben, not at all. Brief, sometimes pained smiles were thrown back and forth, worried voices and concerns sometimes painted on their lips and tones.

Luther and Ben didn’t hang out like he did with Klaus; going out on solo, duo Griddy’s runs, to movies, cooking and eatting together. No. But they were brothers. And that was all Luther needed from Ben. Nothing more, nothing less. Just that thread of connection gifted by their father. 

But again. They were _brothers_. Nothing more, nothing less. That was all that was needed for Luther to break. Fights and yelling make him realize what happened outside of his mind.

Vanya had left, as Allison and Diego fought, ready to leave as well. Klaus looks to them and to Luther, a far away look in his eyes before clicking on his heels and stepping away from the coffin.

Luther was left alone, with his thoughts.. and Ben. Hand grazing the coffin, it felt cold. Frost prickled his cheeks and bare fingers, but he did not feel it enough to care. Cold.

Ben was never cold. Always warm. Active, sweet. _Alive_. Luther thinks he might’ve started crying, or maybe not. Leaning down to the black box he stared at Ben’s picture. He looked young. They were all the same age, but Ben looked so young.

No smile graced his brother’s lips, not even a ghost of one. Luther blinks rapidly, as his vision blurred. He had discarded the black umbrella when he kneeled, white flakes covering him before melting into wet spots in his jacket and pants. 

Ben used to mean a good thing in their household. He was a glue for them. Kept them peaceful. Tension ran high in different forms between the six. Diego was more angry than ever, not his usual short temper, cold regret. Always, always, angry. Luther suspected he was going to move out soon.

Allison tried to be the same. Tried to be sweet. All Luther could see was plastic smiles and hidden tears. He caught her acting in front of her mirror, once. She was good. Allison, much like how Luther grew up with the stars, grew up with _movie_ stars laying dormant in her head. 

Klaus.. was doing drugs. Regretfully, Luther didn’t see to stop him. Luther didn’t even _know_. He only found out after Ben’s death, last week.

His brother was taking every pill someone would give him, every joint, everything he could smoke, inhale, inject or swallow. Their father was going to kick him out, sooner or later.

Vanya was a mystery for Luther. Being.. ordinary, caused him not to be very close with her. More times than he was allowed to brush off, he was harsh towards her.

She strayed from them. Luther suspect’s she’d been playing violin. He heard her roughly and sharply pulling the strings with the bow, playing a faster version of a classical piece. 

As for himself? Luther wasn’t doing very.. well. He liked to think he was doing good. As bad as he was at lying, he was expert at lying to himself. 

Luther trained more than usual, lifted more than normal. His father thinks—no, _knows_ , it’s because the guily of Ben’s death held a much larger shadow on him, than his siblings.

You see, Luther was the one to see Ben dead first. He saw Ben, very much alive, just a few seconds before Ben cried out in pain, crumpling to the ground like wet paper.

Luther panics at the overflowing blood coming from his brothers abdomen, trying to apply pressure like Ben had been shot, before Ben grabbed his brother’s wrist.

Pain came in a singular droplet on Ben’s face, coming down the right side of his head. Ben whispers an almost unhearable sentence, but Luther was listening. Always had been. Always will be.

Well, maybe not always.

“Please.” He plastered a resigned smile on his face. Luther knew it was genuine. Or maybe it wasn’t. But it was the happiest Luther had seen his brother, and if he wasn’t dying on the spot, Luther would have thrusted forward a smile that would match his brothers’s. 

So, Ben smiled when he died.

Underneath the expression was a boy, 17, not ready to die. No one ever was. He was a boy, with hopes and dreams.

But Ben died, and Luther slammed the floor, shaking the building. He cried, sobbing and pleading, shaking his brother with blood stained hands. Luther knew Ben was dead. But if he wished, pleaded, _begged_ , would Ben come back the same?

Unlike most things, Luther knew the answer.

Vanya moved out on their 18th birthday. Allison went second, close to Diego at third. Klaus meandered the streets and alleys, sometimes coming home to just sleep and leave the next day. Their father didn’t consider him still living in the house. His brother was barely living at all.

In another world, Luther Hargreeves would have stayed in that house. Until he is a midage, the _neutral_ age of 25. Then, Luther would get into the accident and sent to the moon. Not in this story.

At age 19, two whole years after Ben, Luther still lives with an intense amount of guilt and grief, enough to drive him off the edge, go mad. Instead, he humbly requests his father to prepare him a ship. He’d like to go to the moon. Unlike another world’s bitter grit towards their father for guising the moon as his mission, Luther _chooses_ the moon.

Every turn and corner reminded Luther of his brother, every room played in stop motion as if he was a young boy and his yet-to-be named siblings, Two, Five and Six were playing games with him in the stairwell. 

Luther needed to get away. 

He does, and after waking on the moon one night, he realizes he left everything behind for a giant space rock. But he remembers, he didn’t have much in the first place.

He goes back to bed. 

The moon wasn’t very hard to live on. It wasn’t anything at all, actually. Luther’s routine was nothing more than wake, water his plant, take out the trash, eat(he rarely did,) read a book, eat(he never did,) sit, sleep, eat(he stopped doing so,) watch the wall, rearrange his small compartment, sleep(and eat and eat and eat.) 

It was simple. And uneasy. And terrifying. He swore he saw something out there. When he took out the trash, there was a rustle in the wind(and then he remembers, there is no wind.) 

Nightmares plagued Luther’s dreams. It’s not always the darkness that runs circles around his thin rectangular home, even thought it usually is. Sometimes Ben, or even Five, shows up. They talk or read or sit with the darkness and they look happy.

Ben and Five are older, about as old as him, now. Ben has short cut black hair, like he usually preferred, and wore a pair of black jeans and a leather jacket. It was out of his style, or maybe totally fit into it; their father never let them explore their options, and when the rare PR outing came around or a teen interview popped up, Grace chose what they wore. 

Five looks like Luther. Obviously so, they were twins, after all. But instead of dull, coarse and sandy hair is vibrant dark brown. Raven.

His eyes are green, sickening green. Pale green, with darker outer edges. A glint in them and toothy smile are plastered on his face. Five wears a suit. White dress shirt and leather dress shoes, with carefully straightened black slacks and an uncreasable suit coat. 

They’re laughing. Luther doesn’t know when the last time was that he laughed. Or cried, even. N̶o̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶m̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶

Luther can see them from his window. He tries to reach out and be happy. He doesn’t care if the darkness consumes him, eats him, rips him apart and hangs him to dry, he just wants to see his brothers. He doesn’t, but another darkness takes him all the same.

In and out. In and out. With thread, he patches himself up. He wasn’t cutting. He wasn’t self harming. No, not at all. He slipped. That was all. It’s a one time thing.

Until it isnt. Luther sits outside on his metal porch and watches earth and the stars. His eyes well up, and he hits himself. He did all of this to himself. It is all because of himself. Himself, himself, himself. 

In and out. In and out. The thread was stained an unsightly color, and his fingers were wet. In and out. Himself, himself, himself. 

The moon was supposed to be a vacation. Luther wakes, like many nights before that were filled with self realization, realizing he can’t do it anymore. Getting away from earth, 384,400 km away from everyone else, wasn’t enough. 

So Luther writes a letter. In this world, where Reginald was slowly stopping reading his son’s packages, but not yet, opens the long, thin letter. Small, faint droplets of liquid surround the edges of the paper. 

**_To my family, who although we might’ve never should have been a family, felt as real as one should._**

_Dear.. whoever reads this. Dad, Pogo, Mom or Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, Vanya._

_I went away. To the moon. Did Dad tell you?_

_This isn’t going to be one of those sappy letters, no, just a goodbye._

_So, goodbye. Going 384,400 km away wasn’t enough for me. Nothing ever was. And for that, I say sorry._

_I felt sorry for many things in my life, for things I shouldn’t have been sorry about and not sorry for things I really should have been sorry about._

_But this is neutral. I like, or maybe by now,_ liked _, neutral. So as always, I have choosen that. I am not sorry nor unremorseful. Just.. neutral. Maybe it’s cowardly to do this all the way up here. But I don’t think I could do it down there._

_Finally, goodbye._

—Love, and maybe just From, for some of you, Luther.

Enclosed are poems that I wrote on my short year on the moon. Read them. Or don’t. 

**i.**

to you and maybe more

i am just number one

i say i am your leader, one

i say i am your brother, luther

but to me and no one else

i am less than what i say i am

a boy with no dreams, a love for the stars, a wounded heart.

**ii.**

your coffin is black and cold. 

you were never cold. never meant to be.

you were warm. and happy.

yellows and oranges were a color that accurately described you.

the sun revolved around your person.

you gave a trickle of happiness to a group of gloom. 

i wish it was me in your black box.

**iii.**

i was never meant to be one

maybe to you, i was

or maybe just another tool in your sandbox

i prided myself on my number

never realizing,

in your eyes i was nothing but it

just.. a number.

**iv.**

sweet smiles and honey spoons in chamomile cups

you are our mother 

you are a constant in my ever changing life

but as much as your hugs

and kisses

and warmth enveloped me

i remember you are his and only his

i wish you were ours.

**v.**

you stay by his side 

and eyes redirect away

from his mistreatment and hurt

because you were once in our position 

maybe better than we had

maybe worse than we had 

you explain

that it is because you were always his

but she broke away from him

as much as she could

and you were the one with free will.

**vi.**

_Not a poem, but a real finality._

_I know Dad won’t read past goodbye in my letter. By the way, open my packages. I know Dad doesn’t open most of them, so go find them and read them to Mom. Short poems wouldn’t be enough for her, as they weren’t enough for you seven._

_So in reality, goodbye. I’m.. sorry. For everything._

_I don’t have it in me to continue. If you still.. hate me (I know you all don’t like me much anymore, perhaps never did,) consider this— payment. You won’t have to see me again._

_Diego, as much as I fought with you for Dad’s approval, I know you are a better man than me._

_Allison. Take care of my Tiffany albums. I forgive you. We all wanted love._

_Klaus, say hi to Ben for me. Or maybe I’ll see him first. I promise I won’t haunt you._

_Five, if you could ever some how read this.. I missed you. My twin. A lot of things plagued my mind, filtering in and out, but you were always a constant in it._

_Ben. I have pounds and pounds of guilt, but I won’t pour it out here. Or ever. Just remember, I love you._

_Vanya. You’re good at violin. I wished to listen one last time. Maybe I’ll come back as a ghost to come to a recital. You are my sister, always will be, no matter what, power or no power._

_Goodbye. I love you._

—Truly, Love, Luther.

The letter makes it’s way back to earth, in the slim white plastic package, where his father reads the letter, truly only up until _goodbye_ before discarding the letter across his desk. 

The funeral is a rainy one. Like Luther would have wanted. Reginald says no words. He arranged the funeral and does not attend. Pogo does not attend, either. Grace comes out, Diego clutching to her like he’s six again and about to have to hold his breath for hours.

Allison is silent. Tearless. She’d outdone her waterworks far too many times in her life. But everything, all of it, is.. she can’t explain, but her insides are torn, her heart has stopped beating and her ears give a constant ring. 

Klaus and Vanya hold eachother near, although never close as children, find solace in one another. Ben strays from the casket, eerily edging towards it, reminded of his own death.

This hurt more.

In the still-happening apocalypse, covertly slipped between Vanya’s book, is a thick letter. Opening the mysterious paper, a long sheet falls out.

Five reads and reads, knees growing weaker. He crumples to the ground. 

There was a reason he did not see Luther among his family’s corpses. 

**Author's Note:**

> Vent writing. I hope the poems weren’t too bad. Or cheesy.


End file.
